As we know, Scott Brown told a business gathering in Newburyport that he hearts – to be precise, “will vote for” – Paul Ryan’s budget, which I’ve dubbed the Medicare Destruction Act of 2011.
“The leaders will bring forward (Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s) budget, and I will vote for it, and it will fail,” he said.
Brown seems to have been caught off-guard that people actually noticed what he said in that speech. So two days ago, his spokesman “clarified” – by which we mean “muddied” – his remarks.
Senator Scott Brown will not disclose whether he supports a GOP budget plan that includes sweeping changes to Medicare, despite saying to a business group last week that he will vote for the measure when it comes up in the US Senate….
[Brown spokesman Colin] Reed said that Brown’s comments in Newburyport were merely an observation of political gamesmanship in Washington, not a commitment to vote for the measure or for the politically charged measures within it.
Ah – he won’t disclose. Not a commitment. Cagey, Senator, very cagey.
Too cagey by half, as it turns out – remember, most voters, including surely a substantial majority of voters in Massachusetts, actually hate Ryan’s Medicare Destruction plan. So yesterday, on the Jim & Margery radio show (with Jim Braude and guest host Lauren Beckham-Falcone), Brown “made very clear” that what he meant all along was the exact opposite of what he actually said up in Newburyport.
Braude: This specific proposal, the Ryan proposal to privatize Medicare, if it came up, does it have your support or it doesn’t?
Brown: First of all, it’s very difficult to get into hypotheticals because it’s not coming up, but the way that the Medicare and Medicaid proposals and a lot of other proposals in that bill are right now, no, I can’t support it, and I’ve made that very clear.
Well, well, well. Let’s take that a part a bit.
- “difficult to get into hypotheticals because it’s not coming up” – um, Senator, actually, it is coming up. Harry Reid has made quite clear that he fully intends to have a vote on exactly what the House passed. Of course the vote will fail, as it should, but Reid wants to get the GOP Senators on record. As he should.
- “the way that the Medicare and Medicaid proposals … are right now, no, I can’t support it” – wow! That is big news. Certainly, that is the first time Brown has gone on record as actually opposing the Ryan Medicare Destruction plan.
- “and I’ve made that very clear” – uh, what? Actually, Senator, you’ve made that very unclear, since you said the exact opposite a few days ago. But thanks for the clarification, I guess.
- “… and a lot of other proposals in that bill …” – really? Which ones? We’re all breathless with anticipation over which parts of the crazy in Ryan’s bill you can support and which ones you can’t. Especially because you also said in the same interview that you “applaud the direction” that the Ryan budget “is taking us in terms of reducing spending.” So if you applaud the direction, but you can’t support the actual proposals, where does that leave you?
Frankly, I think Brown is in desperate damage control mode here. I think he still routinely slips back into State Senator mode, where he assumes that he can blab all he wants and nobody really pays attention or cares what he says (this is the “still not ready for prime time” file I referred to earlier). I think he especially does that when he is here in Massachusetts, and I think that’s exactly what happened in Newburyport. Then, belatedly realizing that he’s potentially tied himself to a deeply unpopular proposal, he clams up for a day or two, and then announces that the bad ol’ media and mean ol’ Democrats are out to get him when all he wants to do is make America a better place. Of course he’s been against that awful proposal all along – “he’s made that very clear.” If only people would listen to him, they would understand.
It’s a sleazy act. What’s amazing, though, is how smoothly Brown carries this routine off. If you listen to the audio from the Jim & Margery show, you’ll hear that Brown doesn’t seem to get worked up, or raise his voice, or otherwise show obvious signs of stress. He’s very slick. He’s a true politician in all the bad senses of that word, and he’s a very skilled one. That, in part, is why he’s going to be hard to beat next year. We underestimate him at our peril.
UPDATE: Here’s a video that the Mass. Dems put together collecting some of Brown’s B.B. (Before Braude) positions on the Ryan budget.
What? Lookee over here, perhaps you haven’t seen my dented pick-up truck?
Ryan’s budget plan means that he doesn’t support it. Thanks Scott.
The problem here, they are both recorded.
Of Gingrich’s spokesman in damage control:
“The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.”
“Selling of a Senator”
Unfortunately it looks like many Bay Staters are no longer able to bury their heads in the sand and realize they’ve got a great case of buyer’s remorse.
Don’t worry, Brownie, I’m sure plenty of the loyalists think you’re doing a “heckuva job.” You might even win the nutcases back, too. By then though, the other 6 million Bay Staters will have caught on to your act, though.
To many in the mainstream media keep playing on the idea that Brown is a socially moderate, independent minded, fiscally conservative Senator, in the Brooks and Weld mold of recent Bay State Republicans. In fact, while those two Republicans had a consistent record of supporting labor and the aspirations of working families, Brown has consistently voted against them. On these issues he has aligned himself with the radicals in Wisconsin, with the Koch brothers, and with the Randian notion that government has no duty to provide for the poor, people that branch of the right brand as “moochers”. I guess Brown’s single mother was a moocher than and he is a hypocrite for living off the government cheese when he needed and pulling up the ladder for others. This is why I want a serious candidate to oppose Brown, because he should be easy to beat, but unfortunately is treated as the teflon Senator by the local media and not enough people know how bad he really is on issues they care about. Outside of the Boston area no major working class city voted for Coakley, Worcester, Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, all went to Brown. We cannot let the working families of the Commonwealth get seduced by him again, we need to give them a choice.
Ted Kennedy, who Brown replaced in the U.S. Senate, was a real leader. Everyone knew where he stood on the issues.
Brown, by contrast, has had a consistent pattern of not taking positions on issues until the last minute, as he tries to balance the demands of the Senate Republicans with what Massachusetts voters will tolerate. He has never shown any indication that he has any values of his own.